strange things with "free" accounts

So I've just set up my new "free" wordpress account (with a domain name I purchased from DH) for dreamhost apps and I'm seeing a couple things that really seem to be showstoppers. I'm a newbie to this service, but have done some wordpress admin and web admin stuff in the past.

The main thing is just about the default permissions with the program. I've changed templates to one of the built-in ones that were already uploaded to the template directory. Unfortunately, since the template directory seems to be read-only, I can't change anything. This may sound like a "cry me a river, it's a free service, how much customization do you want" kind of situation, but the template has hard-coded information including a sidebar that includes "Author: a little bit about you" which of course can't remain in place.

Of course, I'd also like to be able to use templates beyond those that dreamhost has pre-installed, but I'm willing to concede that's a "cry me a river, it's free" kind of thing to whine about.

Am I missing something in the admin interface that would allow me to change the permissions on that directory and/or edit the template files w/o getting full ftp/sftp/ssh permissions? I realize that once you do that, idiots will be more able to shoot themselves in the foot more effectively, but at that point, a uninstall/reinstall would seem to fix things.

Ideas? Help?

I think that it boils down to being a service to entice users to pay for hosting at DreamHost. It's a nice intro for the cost-conscious, and if they really get into it, it may justify the $10 or so a month for hosting.

-Scott